TOLEDO, Ohio — Big budget cuts could be coming to food banks across Ohio.
This comes as a study released last month by the Ohio Association of Foodbanks found nearly one-third of Ohioans who use food pantries have to choose between buying food or paying other important bills.
For the upcoming state budget, the Ohio Association of Foodbanks requested up to $50,000,000 -- about $10,000,000 more than last year's budget -- for the 12 regional food banks to help with the increased demand from the public.
But the proposed budget, currently approved by the Ohio Senate, only has $24,000,000 earmarked for the food banks.
James Caldwell, the president and CEO of the Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank, said access to food should be considered the baseline need before other social programs can even be effective.
"Nobody wants to see taxes raised, I get that," Caldwell said. "But at the end of the day, you can't do anything, you really don't have any growth in the state or in this country if you have hungry people."
In Lima, the West Ohio Food Bank says it will have to rely heavily on fundraising and donations to make up the difference if $24,000,000 is the final number.
According to CEO Tommie Harner, the WOFB has served close to 40,000 people to date in 2023, compared to 49,000 people overall in 2022.
Harner said to continue serving that many people would mean using money that was intended for different programs to be used to purchase food instead.
"It makes us concerned because we don't know how much more we're going to have to purchase. And the more we purchase, the more our budgets deplete," she said.
Both Caldwell and Harner said anyone who is also concerned about the proposed budget's allocation for food banks should reach out to their local state representatives as soon as they can.